It takes a very special kind of hubris to grab a concept or a product so ingrained in the public eye and to produce a shoddy replicate of it in order to hitch a publicity ride and turn a profit. How many children have ripped open their presents on Christmas morning expecting to find a copy of the latest Transformers DVD in their grubby little hands, only to discover that Granny and Gramps had been duped by the pound shop into picking up the shockingly titled rip-off, Transmorphers, instead? How many minutes were spent writing the script to a movie that had already been written long ago by the coke-snorting tyrants of Hollywood? How many actors have stared wearily at their own reflection and thought just one more film, just get through this one more and then you can move on and chase the blockbuster future you promised yourself.
The Asylum studio in Burbank, California, may be able to provide those answers, if they weren't so busy producing counterfeit versions of your christening video tape and distributing it to chronic masturbators and kitsch fanatics.
I'm not even entirely sure if I have anything against The Asylum, you have to reserve a morsel of respect, or at least hold a kind of mirthful disbelief, for a film studio with the fortitude to literally rip-off every blockbuster film of the last ten years and to do so without even the slightest hint of shame. This is a group of people who think shame is a kind of shellfish you can eat at a swanky restaurant, purchased with the money they pulled in from Alien vs. Hunter (2007). They sit there at candlelit beach side restaurants, unbuttoning their trousers and crooning 'That was a lovely plate of shame, see that my compliments reach the chef.'
I've done quite enough writing, I think it best to let the DVD covers speak for themselves.
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